According to a notice by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), non-resident account types such as NRE/NRO having international mobile numbers will now be allowed to transact with UPI.
Transactions will be enabled from mobile numbers of ten countries to start with Singapore, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, United States of America, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom.
These NRI accounts will be permitted to on-board and transact in UPI, provided the member banks ensure that such accounts are permitted only as per the extant FEMA regulations and they comply with the guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India.
NPCI noted that all onboarding and transaction level checks – such as cooling period and risk rules – will be applicable as per extant UPI guidelines.
The notice states that there has been a demand from customers in the ecosystem to enable UPI for their NR accounts linked to international numbers.
This announcement has come at a time when the Central Government has ₹2,600 crore outlay approved Promotion of payments using RuPay card and UPI.
On 6 January, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said: “For UPI, we have already countries have signed In this region, for example, with other countries like Bhutan and Nepal and we are trying to provide UPI facility to make cross border payments very easy in this region…”